1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to electrical automation devices including switches and relays for manual and remote operation of appliances in residences and other buildings.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Switches and relays for switching on-off electrical appliances such as water boiler, air conditioners, heaters, lights and any other electrical equipment and appliances in residences, offices, public building, businesses, restaurants and factories are very well known. The well known relay devices for home automation are commonly installed in the main or a sub electrical cabinet of a given premises. The installed relays are operated via bus lines, RF, or by control signal propagated via the AC power line.
The costs of the prior known automation devices and relays including their installation are very high because the electrical wiring must be changed from its standard commonly applied wiring systems, in which the electrical power is fed via the commonly installed switches in the electrical wall boxes. This is in clear contrast to the electrical direct feed from the main or sub electrical cabinet via the relays. For controlling the relays in the electrical cabinets, the commonly used standard switches are replaced by control switches, propagating electrical signals, RF signals, AC power line signals and in some instances IR signals in open air to reach and operate the relay's control circuits in the electrical cabinets.
Such fundamental basic change in the structured electrical systems became too complex, costly and moreover the complexity is the cause for serious repeated malfunctions of the installed electrical automation systems. Further, the known home automation devices do not report the power consumed by the individual electrical appliances and do not provide usable data for reporting statistics to the home owners, nor to the yet to be born “smart grid”.
The U.S. Pat. No. 7,649,727 introduced a new concept whereby single pole dual throw (SPDT) relay connected to a commonly used SPDT switch or to dual poles dual throw (DPDT) switch for enabling the switching of the electrical appliances or lights manually via the commonly installed switch and remotely via the home automation controller. The SPDT and DPDT switches are known also as two way or four way switch respectively.
Further, the U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,639,907, 7,864,500, 7,973,647, 8,041,221, 8,148,921, 8,170,722, 8,175,463, 8,269,376, 8,331,794, 8,331,795, 8,340,527, 8,344,668, 8,384,249, 8,442,792 and US publication 2013/0183043 disclose home automation controls, connections, switches and relays for operating electrical appliance an add-on devices such as the SPDT and DPDT relays or current drain adaptors.
The referenced US patents further disclose in details the reporting of the power consumed by the appliances through the relays or through AC outlets and plugs or through the current drain adaptors. The current drain or power consumption reports are communicated via optical signals through plastic optical fiber cables known as POF or lightguide, via IR or RF in open air, and via electrical signals through bus lines or other networks directly or via command convertors.
The above listed US patents and many pending applications in other countries disclose an add on or a combination of separate SPDT or DPDT switches and/or power sockets and/or current sensing adaptor combinations, which all teach substantially advanced residence and other building automation.
Yet, there is a need for a single automation device comprising a combination of a switch and a relay including the sensing, calculation and reporting power consumption circuits, structured within the sizes and shapes of current day commonly used AC switches at a lower cost than current day automation devices and providing further installation ease and simplicity.